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Operation: Marcab Invasion was a huge success!
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| Freebie Table card design |
Post Raid Report: By Anonagi
You
guys have no idea how close the plug came to being pulled on the entire thing, many, MANY times. The Build Up
When the whole Anonymous movement was taking place
globally and it looked like a long campaign, several different factions announced long term plans for outreach events over
what will become known as the Summer of Lulz, July specifically. Euroanons (London especially) made plans
to fly Mark Bunker and Tory Christman out for the global protest on the 12th, and WashingtonDC anons were rallying the entire
eastern seaboard of the United States into a march on the national mall. The western US had been enturbulating nonstop in
San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, but we didn't have any large outreach event planned so far.
A few
people had made threads on Enturbulation on the subject of Anonymous doing something at Comic-Con, although nothing really
materialized. Anonymous, in the spirit of doing, instead of coaching, made me think "Well, how would a raid work at Comic-Con?"
Comic-Con has over 125,000 people from all over the globe attend and is one of the largest gatherings
of comics, pop media, and fandom in the Western Hemisphere. San Diego itself is packed with tourists during this weekend as
well. In short, it's one of the most concentrated gatherings with the ability to reach people globally. San Diego anons are resourceful but there was no way we could pull it off without help from
Anonymous members globally. A plan was hammered out that could reach the most amount of people with the least amount of funds.
I met with enturbulation.org staff about the possibility of a donation drive in May, in order to raise funds to reach people
here at the Convention in July. The plan was approved for there to be a link on the website to the Marcab Invasion and for
me to post a thread. These were done.
As far as the site itself, I had already set up the site for the San Diego
Anonymous cell, and decided instead of creating a new website, to put the Invasion on the San Diego website. Paypal was set
up with an anonymous widget so anyone could donate. And people did. I was amazed seeing it happen. A few other Anon cells
linked to it.
I had also not seen a store out there that sold proper Anony-gear, so a lot of work also went into
creating the Cafepress store, with the funds from it going to fund the Marcab Invasion, for people that didn't want to
flat out donate but wanted some cool gear. And it is all incredibly sexy.
Behind the scenes, I was working with
several members of Comic-Con staff to get it off the ground. The original plan was to do a table drop of youfoundthecards
on the freebie table, with a handout along the registration lines. Donations were pouring in, and we found a printer that
was semi-local that would work with us.
We got the word back from Comic-Con staff that youfoundthecard was a no
go. Activist causes cannot be promoted at Comic-Con, but there is a loophole. If you’re promoting an activist cause
via a comic, film, or other form of pop media that Comic-Con celebrates, then that is okay.
Looks like the original
assessment of creating a new website had to be revisited. A few people on Enturbulation had been making beautiful artwork
for the cause, and there had been a few aborted comic book attempts.
Once again, why not?
After another
week of hard work getting everything set up, San Diego launched You Found The Comic, and promoted a Comic Jam for all the
members of Anonymous with artistic abilities that wanted to pick up a pen through the cause. We hope to have issue #0 completed
soon by the end of August.
We finally got approval on the card design, since it was promoting a comic.
Mark Bunker, aka Wise Beard Man, loved the idea, and made a video promoting it which pushed
our donations even higher – a large part of what we received was because of this video. Everyone involved wishes to
give him our sincere thanks.
The final plan had four operations to it – one main one, with the other three
operations being diversions to keep the Scientologists at the convention busy.
Main plan – freebie table
drop of tens of thousands of youfoundthecomic postcards
Diversion 1 – Youfoundthecard drop outside and inside the
convention
Diversion 2 – Raid on the org Saturday night
Diversion 3 – Actual visible Anon protest outside
the con by the trolley station. These last two were what was hopefully going to divert Scientologist attention the most.
The order went to the printer the week before, rushed. The last few days leading up to the
Invasion were torture. Scientology knew we were doing something. We knew they would pull several things that weekend. But
what? All of us, especially myself, were walking on eggshells.
Tuesday rolls around and we go drive about eight
hours to pick up the cards. When they wheeled out the pallet stacked tall, to see all the hard effort of the last few months
come to fruition…it was amazing. We dropped off the first batch of cards at the convention then went home for a much
needed drink.
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| New YFTC design |
Wednesday: The first skirmish Then
Wednesday rolls around. The first day of the convention, and the first indirect skirmish. I parked myself down by the grassy
area on the south side of the convention center, where the line started to wrap around all the way to the back of the Convention.
I met up with DeliciousCake and handed out about 2000 youfoundthecards in less than an hour before security
came up to me.
Overall, it wasn’t too bad. DCSF had wandered off handing out cards and I called her and told
her to stop, and she got the hint to not come back while I was talking with security.
The “official”
story that he told me was that “someone” had visited youfoundthecard in line using a blackberry or iPhone or something
and was shocked at the “religious hatred and bigotry” involved, specifically, the cartoon parodying the mac VS
pc commercials where linux gets beaten with a baseball bat. Now, I knew this was BS as you had to link through alot of places
on YFTC to get there, if at all. To this date, I still cannot find that image linked through youfoundthecard. I knew we would be found out, but I didn’t think it would be that fast. I unmasked to
speak with him and we talked for quite a while about what it was, what we were doing, and the fact we had set up something
on the freebie table that was approved by the convention.
Any guesses as to “who” was complaining?
I had to explain that while I was not the site administrator on youfoundthecard, I was the admin for youfoundthecomic,
and I knew for a fact there was absolutely no objectionable content unless someone had hacked my site in the last three hours.
He was on his radio for a bit, determining what to do with me, and overall, was very polite and neutral. I would have rather
dealt with him than with the harbor police. I didn't realize it at the time, but this would backfire.
Apparently, I wasn’t allowed to hand anything out there in the grassy area. Comic-Con
annexed that property for the first time this year, using it for line control. Previous demonstrations had gone on there in
the past, so I thought we were fine to hand out items along anyone in that area. This was an honest point of confusion.
Long story short, we met with another anon who had gone down the line, simply to make sure he wasn’t handing
out anything, and spent a few HOURS doing damage control. I finally explained to security that I wasn’t aware there
was an issue with us handing out cards where we were, and that in order to make his job and everyone’s life easier,
we would change our plans and only hand things out at the north end of the center and over by the trolley station, off of
Convention Center property. The other reason I wanted to do this was because I didn’t want to run the risk of the freebie
table postcards getting pulled since the design was identical.
He agreed that was the best solution and thanked
me for being open and honest with him. I shook his hand, and myself and the other anon went inside to get our badges. Afterwards,
I spent some time talking with Metro police to let them know what we were doing, that we were going to be in there, and finding
out what we could and couldn’t do while at the trolley station.
The plans were updated that night on our
forums and IRC. The security guard had made things very clear – if he found us on convention property handing out stuff,
our badges would be confiscated and we would be removed from convention center grounds, and the postcards would be pulled
from the table. No plan survives first contact with the enemy, so we went to plan B, which we had in place for a while in
the event that things weren’t going to go as planned (they never do). So
we had our first battle against Scientologists trying to manipulate Comic-Con staff that weekend, and it was the first of
several. That night, I was outed online in several different places. My name was
publicly posted. It turns out - this security guard either
worked for Scientology, or was paid by Scientology. The other Anon who was with me was outed as well - the only thing we had
in common was the two of us speaking unmasked with the Elite security guard. It
was unavoidable. There was nothing we could have done - it was either be outed, or the Marcab Invasion would have fallen within
the first few hours. But they still had a whole weekend - and they weren't finished yet.
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| StreetFreaks interviews Anonymous. Click to open. |
Thursday: Round Two On Thursday,
I met with EpicFawkesGuy, and we handed out thousands of cards in an hour down by the trolley station. People
recognized us instantly with cries of “We love you Anonymous!” We
posed for pictures, people said they saw us in Maxim, and they were taking our cards faster than anyone else’s. We only
found maybe a dozen of them on the ground – that was it. The area was completely saturated with people handing out stuff
- political ads, coupons for strip clubs, viral marketing that never got approved by the convention, and nearly every religious
faction under the sun (except Scientology, of course.) After we handed them out
for a while, we decided to pack it in with a good stiff drink and decided to go see the con. We wandered around for a bit
and did indeed check out Galaxy Press’s booth – nobody there looked too happy, alas, but things were about to
get undoubtedly worse for them that weekend.
Then we had round 2 with the Scientologists.
I made sure
to drop by the freebie table every hour or so (the volunteers working there were perplexed because the cards were going faster
than anything else on the table – they blew through OVER NINE THOUSAND on Thursday alone. No, this isn't the meme,
this is actually serious.)
Finally, early afternoon, I went back up there, and no cards were to be found. There’s
no way they ran out that quickly…was there foul play?
Talking with one of the people there confirmed my
suspicions. The VP of Comic-Con had personally came up to the table, and told them to pull them all because they
had received nonstop calls and complaints about the content of the cards. I immediately asked who I could appeal the decision
to, and was directed all around the con for a good half hour. Frustrated, I called my contact on the CCI staff.
Long
story short, things were resolved and the cards were put back on the table within about an hour. Apparently, nobody who was
“complaining” bothered to check out the site – with absolutely no bigotry or hatred on it nor linked through
it. Rumor had it Moxon was involved somehow in that little skirmish, trying to get them pulled. I did find out that Scientologists
had been calling non stop regarding those cards to get them pulled and finally Comic-Con told them where to shove it. Scientologists 0, Anon 2.
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| Click for full size |
Friday: Murphy's Law Friday,
it all hit the fan.
First of all, I had my wallet stolen on Thursday evening. Then on the way to the convention
my cooling fan failed in my car, and it was overheating. Right as I was pulling into the parking spot, my radiator exploded.
Scientologists 0, Anon 2, Murphey’s Law 2
So, we were unable to hand out any YFTCs
on Friday due to that unfortunate circumstance, a setback. I had tried to plan
for every contingency but I didn’t think my wallet and my car would be out of commission. Another drop was made at the
freebie table however, and apparently I heard a few Anons were handing out stuff by the Marriot and trolley although I was
never able to confirm.
Then something interesting happened. I was by the freebie table, and two people dressed
in black came up and said they were with Convention Center security – and to pull all the youfoundthecomic cards. It was pure coincidence that I was there when this happened. What followed was an intense argument
between me, the freebie table volunteer, and the two “security guards.” They said they had orders to pull them,
and I told the person at the freebie table that this had happened yesterday, and the VP of the con had personally approved
them to be out. This went around for a while until he agreed, and I asked the
Scientologists “security” people, to show their Convention Center identification – since
their shirts didn’t have the embroidered logo that all the con security did. I got some insanely dirty looks, and they
both walked off.
I saw one of them at the Galaxy Press booth later that day.
Scientologists
0, Anon 3, Murphey’s Law 2
Then I was an idiot and stopped to pose in costume for a few people in
a group. Our bags got mixed up and suddenly, no more cellphone.
Scientologists 0, Anon 3, Murphey’s
Law 3
The rest of the day for me personally involved getting my car towed to a nearby mechanic, getting
a ride home, and trying to figure out frantically how to get the other cards down.
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| Courtesy DCSF. Click for full size |
 Saturday and Sunday
Scientology wasn't our biggest worry on Saturday! DCSF to the rescue! She offered to pick me up and took the rest of the cards for the freebie
table along with me, and we went down to the con. Apparently, there were a few Anons there waiting for me and DCSF made the
card drop while myself and another Anon made another drop of ten thousand cards for the freebie table. Barb was there handing out cards dressed as Xenu, there were other anons, the names of which
I have no idea except for Anonilate and Obamanon, and they were going through them faster than they could hand them out.
They went like crazy the entire day and we had no more encounters with Scientology, Although I did notice one more
thing that day.
There were a ton of people that were selling V masks at the con. And anyone who walked
by the Galaxy Press booth with one on or on the back of their head was photographed by a woman in a green shirt and long hair
with an iPhone trying to get their badge. I saw it happen with about ten people as I loitered at a booth across from
theirs. I hope she had enough memory in that thing because there were hundreds of people wearing them. There were
also a few people there from the CoS of San Diego manning the booth.
They were also giving “free”
decks of playing cards, but you had to sign up with your name and address to get them. There weren’t many takers.
Sunday, I ended up violently sick so I wasn't able to go to the con, but with DSCF having the rest of the cards,
and all the business cards in the hands of the other anons, I felt the invasion was in good hands.
Sunday night,
we ended up with a few boxes of postcards left over. They’ll be going to Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and San Francisco to
help with their efforts at conventions up there.
Tens of thousands of people were reached and I had to buy more
bandwidth for the site. Now it’s time to focus on the comic.
Scientology – you tried
every dirty tactic you could to try and stop this operation but you failed. We reached more people at the convention than
you could possibly have hoped to with Galaxy Press. Nobody was buying LRH books and the only things you could have hoped to
accomplish there was getting fresh WOG info for your mailing list. Enjoy the amount of money you spent, money that you won't
be getting back, thanks to our efforts.
Anonymous – there is no way this would have happened
without you. For two months, you guys donated, you helped at the convention, and kept us going here. I damn near killed myself
trying to organize this. You guys helped us pull off the largest outreach drive so far in all of Chanology, and the results
were amazing. So many people were educated about the dangers of the cult, and people responded to us very well.
And
just wait to see what we have in store for next year - we'll reach everybody.
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